Why Apple Beam Is Still Successful

Tuesday 23rd October, 2011 by Darren M

Seven years ago I set up our recording studio business called Apple Beam and it was very well received from day one. I knew other studios were over charging and under-delivering because I had so many people asking me to produce their music for them.

I recognised that amateur home studios were becoming more powerful and increasingly popular. A few huge record releases of the time were recorded on laptops and in fact I had recorded the platinum selling artist, Kevin Lyttle in his hotel room using a laptop!

I felt that the large commercial studios would struggle to charge the prices they had been and musicians no longer needed to pay extortionate prices for high quality music production.

It seemed that the main drain on money for musicians was the time spent recording. It was clear from what our clients told us that some producers were stretching out sessions to earn more money.

To combat this, we used to brief our clients before they came in to the studio on how to save time and money! Perhaps that's not good business sense, but musicians appreciated it. I genuinely wanted to give the best deal possible, whilst offering high end music production.

For me this was about setting the standard so that musicians can guage value and know what is fair within the industry. As our prices increased from £25/hour to the current £35/hour, we implemented more technology and working strategies to reduce time needed in the studio, so in real terms most of our sessions end up costing the same or less than they did when we launched!

The musicians dilema is that they can go to a very cheap producer, but chances are they'll need twice as many hours in the studio and could walk away with a sub standard recording, or they could go to an expensive producer and risk a huge bill.

We take all the guess work and risk out by providing high end services and a mid ranged price. However, our working methods greatly reduce wasted time and therefor our customers very often pay less than studios within a similar price bracket.

We've had clients come to us and say that their old producer wants to charge them £400+ to be given the files to their song (known as stems). This is in many ways an example of a hidden cost because most musicians don't consider the stems when they book a studio.

We have never charged for providing the clients stems and would never try and pull the wool over anyones eyes. In fact, our focus on customer satisfaction and fair pricing has made us one of London's most popular studios.

Seven years since launch and Apple Beam is still one of the busiest studios in London, producing some 450 projects a year. We've remained super efficient and always offer advice to our clients. We have saved musicians tens of thousands of pounds over the years and we continue to do so.

If you require high end audio production from a company that knows a great deal about song creation, simply get in touch and tell us about your project.